And the Borders of Old Cities Get Redrawn
by blackmare
Summary: Dinner, beer, and shifting boundaries; it's just another night at House's, except in all the ways it's not. Episode tag for 8.02 "Transplant", so spoilers for that.
1. Chapter 1

_And the Borders of Old Cities Get Redrawn_

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"You've got ... candles? Since when do you even ... I don't want to know." It's disorienting and familiar, both at once, being back here. There are rags and bottles of various cleansers lying out on House's kitchen counter, not too far from one of the lit tapers, which is held upright by a wad of aluminum foil scrunched around its base.

"From the emergency kit you insisted I should have. A guy can't be romantic?"

"A guy, sure. _You_, on the other hand -"

"Calm down, Jimmy. You and Little Jimmy will leave here unmolested. Candles help mask the cleaning fumes. Also, reveling in my new-found non-prisondom. No open flame on D-block."

"How about moving the open flame away from the flammable rags before D-block burns to the ground?"

House makes that stupid hand-puppet sign for _nag nag nag_, but he picks up the candle in its tinfoil base and limps out of the kitchen. There is, Wilson notices, more dust settled into House's hair than there is on the counter, or the piano. The floor still hasn't been swept, and the place smells of disuse, Windex, and laundry detergent, except of course for the three large boxes of food in Wilson's arms. "Coffee table's cleared off?" he inquires, but he's already heading that direction.

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* * *

><p>.<p>

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The hurricane candle adds a bit of lowbrow ambiance to the Styrofoam boxes and tubs on the coffee table. It's ridiculous, bizarre, a prop for a white-trash date night, and it's making Wilson smile.

"Oh my God." House has shut his eyes, leaned back, and he looks like ... like he's in the middle of something a lot more personal than dinner. "Oh my _God_. Where'd you go for this?"

"Witherspoon."

"They do carry-out?"

"They do if you know how to ask. You thought I'd sock you in the jaw and then, what? Head straight for Applebee's? Pass the potatoes."

House is too busy enjoying himself to argue. "This is almost good enough," he says, once he's washed down a bite with the beer Wilson brought. "_Almost _good enough to make up for you having abandoned me in there."

"Don't make me hit you again."

"Why did you? Abandon me, I mean, not hit me. Sure you were pissed; I get that, but - "

"You jackass. Yes, I abandoned _you_, didn't I? Just left you standing there on the sidewalk with your wrist broken, and limped off into the sunset without another word, and then I fled the country and left you, my supposed best friend, not knowing if I was alive or dead. Fuck you."

House, amazingly, has no reply, no joke for that, so Wilson continues. "You didn't call me when you came back. There was never so much as a note from you after you went to prison. You abandoned me, House, and I ... decided to stay abandoned. You ever accuse me of that again and I swear I will break your nose."

"I didn't ... it wasn't ... "

"It wasn't what? Convenient?"

"I didn't have any right. Calling you after I ran from the cops. Making you choose, one more time, whether to rat me out or try to cover for me."

"Also, you didn't want to talk to me."

"I knew if I called you, I wouldn't stop calling. I'd get us all tangled up, and I was trying to ... sort myself out."

"After the first two weeks I was pretty damn sure you were dead. 'Tangled' would have been a relief." He spears another piece of steak, with a much harder jab than the tender meat needs. "So did it work? The sorting out?"

"Don't know. Only so many days you can hang out drinking beer and getting sand in your ass-crack before Cabo starts to seem like its own kind of hell. That mean I went sane again?"

"We can hope."

"Wilson." There's that expression he knows, those pleading, hopeful eyes, House trying to say it and not say it, at the same time. A tinge of mischief creeps in and Wilson feels House's leg begin to jiggle, the big bony knee bumping against his own, because House has scooted close enough to do that.

"I know."

House leans across him to reach the remote, pressing into Wilson's side and then staying there while he looks for something other than _Shawshank Redemption_ to watch. Wilson approves, and he's not even sure he wants House off him. There's something comforting about the pressure, and there's been very little closeness in Wilson's life these past ... two years. Two_ years_, if he thinks about it, ever since Sam, and it turned out he hadn't been as close to Sam as he'd thought. If he had been, he could've seen it coming.

"Let's see it, Slugger," House says. Satisfied for now with some softly-narrated wildlife show, he's picking up Wilson's right hand, gently manipulating the finger bones and the metacarpals. "You fracture anything this time, it isn't my fault."

"Your excessively thick skull appears to be made of titanium."

"You're fine, though. Must not have hit me hard enough."

"Won't make that mistake again." He's smiling, whether he meant to be or not. It doesn't even feel all that strange when House gives the hand back and leans further in, his heavy shoulder against Wilson's.

"You lied," House says. He's so close that Wilson can feel the vibration of his voice.

"Everybody does, or so you say. Be more specific?"

"You like me." House's knee is bumping at him again. "You have fun with me, and you like me."

"I wasn't lying at that moment."

"Were so." The jiggling ceases. "I'd tell you to just admit it, but I don't want you launching that beer bottle at my TV."

"Okay, I didn't think I was lying, at the time. And an empty beer bottle's not heavy enough. Get your whiskey, if you have any, and then we'll talk property damage."

"_Potential_ property damage. You know where I keep the good stuff, and I know that was a pie you put in the fridge. Fair's fair."

"Fine," Wilson sighs. He knows House is in pain, but this is not the night they'll talk about that. "You've got me jammed into the corner. Lemme up."

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* * *

><p>.<p>

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Wilson dumps the shattered remnants of dinner - the boxes and the few sad scraps - into the trash. He's eaten so much that he ought to feel like a beached whale, but no; he still wants dessert. And whiskey.

If there were dishes to do, he would be doing them, but there's only the knives and forks, and that's good. Not so much because Wilson would mind doing dishes - he hasn't forgotten what it looks like when House is short on both pills and sleep - but because House's dish soap hasn't fared well in his absence. The contents of the bottle have congealed into an unnatural, thick blue gelatin. It won't even budge when overturned. Wilson unscrews the top, adds some water, caps it again and shakes; now he has a lump of gelatin at the bottom of a bottle full of foam. He shakes again, with no better results. Dish soap has a shelf life, he thinks. Who knew?

"Leave it," House calls to him. "Pie gets stale. Dishes don't."

House's fridge has nothing in it other than the pie and a few bottles of moribund condiments. With the ankle bracelet, House can't go shopping, and for a moment Wilson thinks that's something he could do. Then he remembers that it's neither his job nor his problem. Plenty of stores deliver, and House did all this to himself.

He sets the pie on the counter, finds two nice-enough tumblers in House's cabinet, and rinses out the dust with a bit of the foam from the soap bottle. There's no fresh dish towel, only the cleaning rags, so he dries the tumblers on his sweatshirt; House won't care. It's in keeping with the night, anyway.

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* * *

><p>.<p>

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They've wiped out half the lemon chiffon pie, and more single malt than they probably should. Nothing has changed: Wilson has barely had any whipped cream because House keeps stealing it all. His chin is flecked with fluff.

House is back where he was earlier, wedged up against Wilson's side, pushing into Wilson's space just as far as he can get. He never used to be this blatant about it, but Wilson isn't pushing him back. It's still weirdly soothing, and anyway, somewhere between the kitchen and the liquor cabinet, it occurred to Wilson that House hadn't even been touched in a year. Handcuffed, shoved around, hit, restrained, God knows what else, but not touched, and for someone as needy and tactile as House, that would ... it would explain a lot.

The only real trouble (if he doesn't count the fact that he's even _here_ as "trouble") is the way his brachial artery is being pinched by the angle of House's shoulder. He puts down his dessert.

"I'm pretty sure the laws of physics state that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time," he gripes, "but if they insist upon trying, the second object needs to arrange itself so that the first still has blood circulation."

House shifts - sweet relief - and then his arm is around Wilson's shoulders, loosely, like this is no big deal.

And maybe, Wilson thinks, it shouldn't be.

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* * *

><p>.<p>

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At the point when he punched House and then offered to buy dinner, Wilson had stopped lying to himself about a number of things. There was the obvious stuff, the anger and the mad, intractable need to still have House in his life.

There were the less obvious things, like the fact that once he showed up here tonight, he was going to eat and get buzzed, if not outright drunk, and he was not going to leave until morning. It was too soon to be doing this again, and he would do it anyway, because he wanted to. He hasn't mentioned this to House, but he figures House knows. It's how they do things.

House splashes a little more whiskey into Wilson's glass, and he looks pretty tense for a guy who's been drinking a while. "You're not driving," he says. "Call a cab or call a pillow, I don't care, but I already hid your keys."

"Those would be the keys I need to unlock the condo."

"Oops."

"Also to get my clothes and toothbrush out of the car."

"You sneaky bastard."

"Trust me, or go get my stuff yourself."

"Your keys are where you left 'em, spoil sport. I'll be in the shower. In my own, glorious shower, alone, where I can indulge in personal soapy pleasures without -"

"House!"

"What? Without someone yelling that my time is up before I've even scrubbed my back. Jeez, Wilson."

"At least leave me some hot water," Wilson says. He blows out the trailer-park candle and goes to find his keys.

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* * *

><p>.<p>

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The problem is definitely not House's sofa, which isn't at all bad, as makeshift sleeping arrangements go. The problem is, he's too tired and too drunk to be this awake, but tell that to his brain. Someone. Please.

Every time he dozes off, he hears people calling his name. Sometimes the voice is House's, and Wilson snaps to attention, but all he hears then is restlessness from the other room. Blankets moving, wood creaking, the kind of sighs and grunts that come from a large, unhappy insomniac.

He should go to House. He shouldn't go to House. The noise quiets after a while, only to begin again with a muffled exclamation that might be leg pain or a nightmare or both.

Fully awake now, Wilson does a quick mental calculation and realizes House hasn't slept in something like 36 hours, unless he managed a catnap in the MRI. And then he realizes it's been about as long for himself, because of his patient and because of House, and even now he's faking sleep although there's nobody there to see him.

Okay, scratch that. It's hard for House to be Stealth Cripple in an apartment with wood floors.

"House?"

"Nope! Tooth Fairy. Now move over."

Wilson sits up, but not without a heavy sigh of protest. It ... wouldn't be right, otherwise. "Fine. I'll take the bed, then."

"Why? You're not sleeping, either way. You think I couldn't hear you out here?" House has snatched the TV remote. He clicks it to life, scrolling until he finds something he doesn't mind.

"The ... Weather Channel? At three in the morning?"

"White noise," House replies, turning it down to a murmur. He's leaning sideways, further and further, wedging himself behind Wilson as he lies down with his back against the cushions. "I learned to be still while I slept. In a narrow bunk, with a wall."

"And white noise. Okay. Mind if I channel surf?"

"Yes. Go take the bed if you want, lie down here if you want; long as you shut up, it's all good."

And there's the clue. If House wanted him off the sofa, it would be a mandate, not an option. Up to him now: a big, empty bed that smells of fresh sheets and House, or the presence of the man himself, entirely too close, but _here_.

Wilson's slept, or not-slept, in too many beds like that, with sheets that smelled of someone who was never coming back. Just like he thought House wouldn't. He wants to be good, be stronger than that, take his pillow and go - the way any normal, straight, sane, middle-aged guy would naturally do.

It would seem he's lacking, at least in the "normal and sane" department. He arranges himself with his back to House's chest, because that's the only way it's going to work. "For what it's worth," he offers, while he's yanking his share of the blankets out of House's grip, "I was happy when I learned you were alive."

"It would have been easier for you if I wasn't." House's breath ruffles the hair on the back of Wilson's head, such a gentle thing from such rotten words. Wilson's never known how to respond to this shit, not really.

"Simpler, in some ways," he says at last. "But that's not the same thing. And you know it."

"Didn't I tell you to shut up?"

"Or what? You'll shank me with the pie server?" He relaxes a little, letting himself lean backward and rest more of his weight against House, instead of holding himself to this precarious edge where it feels like he could fall right off. He keeps expecting what seems inevitable, that House will want to get comfy and he'll throw his arm over Wilson's side, and it'll be weird, and wrong, and soothing. Like the safety bar on a rollercoaster.

When House doesn't do it, Wilson takes a breath, lets his body fall more heavily against House's chest, and waits.


	2. Chapter 2: Toast

_Toast (And the Borders of Old Cities Get Redrawn, Part Two)  
><em>

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"Need you to come over, Wilson."

"Um ... you okay?"

"I'm on the living room floor, bleeding out. No, you idiot, I'm fine, for the value of 'fine' that includes electronic monitoring. You haven't eaten, have you?"

"I'm ... no. I'm heating up -"

"Let it get cold. I'm cooking."

"How did you get -"

"You're the genius who said I should have groceries delivered. Seriously, Wilson, your IQ drops right along with your blood glucose. Thankfully, any moron can drive. It'll be ready in half an hour."

He hangs up, not waiting for an answer because he already knows what Wilson will do.

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* * *

><p>.<p>

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Wilson looks like a beaten dog. Drooping head, hunched back, dull eyes. It's fun to watch the scent of food, real food instead of whatever loser thing he was 'heating up,' bring a spark of life back to him. If the dog has a collar, the kitchen-smell has just grabbed the leash and dragged him in.

"You really did ..." he leans down and peers through the door of the oven. "Are those ... crab cakes? What's ... there's something you want, or something you did. Out with it."

"I killed your patient, you idiot. How are you even here?"

"An entire landslide of problems killed my patient. You ... protected yours. For your own ridiculous and selfish reasons, yes, but the result was the same. Look, yes, you ... you did a rotten thing, House. You never should have; you had no right, and yes, I should be furious with you."

"And yet you're standing in my kitchen, waiting to get crabs from me. Had your own thyroid checked lately?"

"No need. I was trying to do a rotten thing, too."

"At least you weren't trying to donate the organ yourself this time." House pulls the tray from the oven and begins loading two plates. Hefty crab cakes, broiled asparagus with a buttery dill sauce, and tender baby potatoes. "Or did you already give _one _kidney away in the year I wasn't around to stop you?"

"No. No kidney. Just some bone marrow. Is there wine?"

"There's Chateau Corona in the fridge. And you did not."

"You're still going to find my files tomorrow and check."

"Not if you 'fess up now." House gimps carefully into the living room while Wilson's got his head in the fridge, finding the beers. "You didn't do it," he calls back. "Once was enough. That jackass who's walking around with your liver doesn't send you anniversary cards anymore, does he?"

Wilson shuts the fridge and soon follows, plate in one hand and beers in the other. "House?"

"Yes, dear?"

"I'm too tired for this."

"Meaning no, you never heard from him again. Of course you're tired; you're starving. Because when you're losing someone you think you should've miraculously saved, you 'forget' to eat. You punish yourself."

"Exhibit A: I'm friends with you."

"I never claimed it was healthy, just that you like me and it's fun. That applies to a lot of things; speaking of which, beer." House wriggles his fingers and Wilson, obligingly as usual, gives those fingers a beer bottle to latch onto.

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><p>.<p>

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He'd been prepared _not_to sleep here tonight, to be back in his own bed after a week or so of staying with House.

It had begun that strange first night, a punch and a steak dinner and waking up the next morning still caught in the loop of House's arm, with his nightshirt damp and warm between the shoulder blades, because House had moved downward and tucked his head so that he was breathing against Wilson's back.

The next night, he and House had shoved the side of House's bed against the wall, where it needed to be so that House could maybe sleep. They'd ordered pizza because they were both too weary to cook and House still didn't have groceries, and at some point House had looked at him and said, "Wilson," and Wilson had nodded and that was that.

He'd slept in House's bed, with House between himself and the wall, and that - without any further questions or negotiations - is how Wilson's been sleeping since then. Go home, care for poor, lonely Sarah for a while, go to House's. But it can't last, of course. He hadn't planned to even be here tonight.

And he's glad he's here, because he really was starving and _damn_, House can cook.

"You did not," House repeats, between bites, "donate bone marrow."

"Wasn't a good enough match. I'm in the registry, though."

"Who was it?"

"You'd never met her. She was six."

"Was. As in, isn't now."

"Her name was Leah."

"Someday, you'll accept that you can't save everyone. But ... for a six-year-old kid?" He leans back, sighing and rubbing his face. "I actually do get why you'd try."

"Whereas if I'd said it was Tucker, you'd have hit me with your cane."

"I always want to hit you with my cane. Someday you'll catch on." He leers and waggles an asparagus spear in Wilson's general direction. "It _wasn't_ him, was it?"

"No. You were right; he hasn't been in touch. Not that I've missed him. Don't you dare tell me I should've let him die."

"Fine. I won't tell you. I will tell you, although this isn't saying much, that you're better than him."

"Why do compliments from you always feel like some kind of setup?"

"Because you know me? But I mean it. He's a jackass who didn't deserve what you did."

"While you, on the other hand, totally would have."

"Never said that, and that's the difference between us. He's an ass who doesn't _know_ he doesn't deserve you."

_This again_, Wilson thinks. His head throbs. "House, if you were a woman, you'd be asking if those jeans make you look fat."

"Do they?" House gets to his feet and does a clumsy pirouette. "There wasn't a three-way mirror in the dressing room, and I've never been sure about the butt."

"I'm serious. There's no right answer for that shit and you know it."

"There's not supposed to be an answer. It wasn't a question; it's just the truth." House empties his beer and lets out an impressive belch. "Dessert?"

"Yes, yes, you're a worthless pain in the ass, and I'm only here because you're also a master chef. I didn't smell dessert?"

"I got lazy and bought ice cream." House is already halfway to the kitchen.

"Lazy works for me. Especially if accompanied by another beer and one of your pills for the headache you're giving me."

"Booze and opioids, Jimmy? I take it you're not planning to drive home." Wilson can hear him slinging bowls and spoons around, House just getting on with dishing out dessert, like this was normal. "But you're on the sofa from now on."

"Uh. Okay."

House comes back, limping heavily with a second dish of ice cream in his cane hand. "Oh, don't look _hurt_, you moron. I'm a big boy now. Can't sleep with a teddy bear forever."

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* * *

><p>.<p>

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He's back in prison.

It must have been drugs, lots of drugs, because whatever he did, he doesn't remember it happening. Doesn't remember any of it. He was out there, and now he's back here, and something is definitely wrong with him, missing at least twenty-four hours. He runs his hands over his head, feels no injuries, and finds no blood on his fingers.

There's mildew on the mattress. Both mattresses. Psycho cellmate is nowhere to be seen.

_Nobody_ is anywhere to be seen. He's alone, really alone. The other prisoners are gone; the guards are gone; the bars of the cell are rusting and the paint flaking off. The door is shut and won't move. No food, no water, no way out. He yells, first just the usual stuff to get someone's attention, and then strings of profanities and insults that should get him thrown into solitary if there were anyone to do the throwing.

He screams until his throat constricts, his chest burns; he tears his collar open but it doesn't help, _of course it doesn't, it's fucking anaphylaxis, you -_

House sits up, breathing like he's just run a mile. His bed. His place, his sheets, his own pajamas.

His best friend in the living room, sleeping with the television on. The blue flickers and nearly-muted voices are bouncing off the walls outside the bedroom door.

Almost an hour later, House's mind and the living room TV are both still going, and 'from now on' comes to an end. He limps out there, finds Wilson not even attempting to fake sleep, and simply stands over the sofa until Wilson sighs, gets up, and follows him.

Neither of them says a word, and they sleep through what's left of the night.

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><p>.<p>

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The embrace is careful and slow, almost tender. Without opening his eyes, Wilson can easily work out, based upon the position of the arm that has girded his ribs, that House must be lying on his stomach. And that House is awake, well aware of what he's doing, and trying not to wake him.

It might even have worked, if Wilson hadn't already been adrift near the surface of some harmless and fast-fading dream.

_You are busted_, Wilson thinks, but he wills himself adrift again and feels House relax and gradually settle in, close against his side. Being Hobbes to House's Calvin is really not so bad, but it can't go on like this, with Wilson leaving his own house untended, night after night, and his own very real cat by herself all the time. Poor, sweet Sarah.

Wilson opens his eyes to look at the clock. Another three hours until Sarah needs her insulin. The room is that early-dawn blue color, all over, and the blinds are fuzzy-edged with a thick coat of dust. Just as Wilson's reminding himself that cleaning House's place is not his job, House tenses up and starts to roll away.

"No," Wilson says. The word comes out of him without warning, and his left hand moves. He's caught House's wrist before either of them knows what he's doing.

"You want me off, you have to let go."

He doesn't want to let go, or talk about it. "Idiot," he grumbles, pulling House's arm back into the spot where it was. "Go to sleep."

Slowly, very slowly, House does.

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* * *

><p>.<p>

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"You were sober, and you were awake," House begins, because it's best to demand explanations of Wilson first, put him off balance before he has a chance to focus his laser beam on House instead. Right now, to House's relief, the laser beam is focused resolutely on the coffeemaker.

"So were you. Didn't want to discuss it then, don't want to discuss it now." Wilson is practicing evasion-via-breakfast, which is one of House's best-loved of Wilsonian avoidance strategies. It smells amazing in here. French toast, cinnamon and tart sauteed apples, and House is not going to mention that he bought a lot of stuff he knew Wilson might use. "I can't keep staying here all the time."

And there it is, the sentence House was waiting for. Cut and run, the _other_classic Wilson maneuver. House snatches up a mug of coffee, abruptly not hungry, because he's pathetic. A year of wanting his freedom and now that he sort of has it -

Wilson is staring at him. "I need to talk to your parole officer," he says.

"What?" This is not what he was ... "Why?"

"I'm hoping there's some way to get you okayed to ... to be at a third location." He steps away to turn the strips of bacon so the other side will fry. His motions are stiff. "Namely, _my _location. And before you freak out or anything, I don't mean move back in."

"Good. Because I won't." He does remember how that ended the last time.

"I know. And I understand why not, and I ... look, should I just drop the idea? Do you even want me to try?"

"It's more freedom of movement. Why would I be opposed?" The truth is he almost said no, like a reflex, a means of not having to make the decision Wilson's been making every night. But he might as well just stamp 'COWARD' across his forehead in giant red print.

"Bacon's gonna burn," House lies, smiling at the way Wilson jumps at the false alarm. What he's been doing - wheedling Wilson into staying here, and the _way_ Wilson's been staying, and everything - none of this is even remotely normal. It's weird even by _their _standards. It probably means something, unless it doesn't; something's changed, or it hasn't; they were always this alone, weren't they?

House doesn't know, and may not even want to know. But he is definitely, absolutely hungry.

He moves in, stands closer while Wilson turns around to say that the bacon is fine. "It's _fine_."

"I know," House answers. "Hand me a plate."


End file.
